CDB Entry: Thinking, Writing About the Small Pieces (NMC 2004)

Wed, 07 Jul 2004 21:13:52 -0700

Brian Alger has been doing some nice reflecting on the concepts of our NMC 2004 "Small Piecess Loosely Joined" idea- recently writing about "Weblogs: Which Pieces and How Should They Joined? (NMC 2004)"... I would have written, but Brian's blog...

comment by: Brian Alger

Thu, 08 Jul 2004 05:10:22 -0700

I agree with your comments, and thanks for the trackback.

The lack of a comment feature on my site is something that I'm not happy about. The frustration with having to delete spam (I really wanted to use some very, very bad words there) definitely got the better of me. Trackback has helped to a degree and I always follow these links into my site and outward from other sites. Yet I am able to write a comment here on your site. Perhaps I need another less extreme solution for commenting on my own site.

"I think there are no singular answers, Brian" Completely agree. It may be that I have been "playing" with the wrong pieces - wrong in the sense that they don't fit into my purpose for writing, not in the sense that the pieces themselves are somehow deficient. And, of course, there are many pieces I have yet to discover and undoubtedly some I have tried but failed to see the benefit. I'll keep playing and always reserve the right to be wrong.

"... that is the payoff, making connections." Definitely. Since I started blogging I have "met" many new people that I would not have had I not been blogging. I now have email exchanges and have had a few phone conversations with people in "far flung places." There are people I will now try to meet f2f if and when my travels take me there. This is exciting stuff. My entry about which pieces and how to join them was intensely selfish. I was really lecturing myself on not getting too carried away with tools at the expense of trying to think and write. But that's not the whole story as you have added. I appreciate this.

I admit that, if I had to choose sides, I am decidedly in the pro small pieces loosely joined camp. But I think, at least for me, questions about which pieces (or even, what constitutes a piece) and how (and why) should they joined will remain a baseline reference in my thinking. These questions are not intended to imply a pro commercial systems stance, but are more of along the lines of, "Yes, of course, small pieces loosely joined - but how?" I don't really know and I have removed some of the pieces I was exploring - but it does make a great workbench.

And there are no singular answers:-)

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CDB Entry: Thinking, Writing About the Small Pieces (NMC 2004)

comment by: Brian Alger